


Catalogue of Sins

by amelia



Series: A Torchwood Almanac [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Branding, M/M, Psychological Torture, Smut, Torture, Year That Never Was
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-25
Updated: 2012-05-25
Packaged: 2017-11-06 00:08:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/412561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amelia/pseuds/amelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After burning the Master's body, the Doctor examines Jack to uncover the extent of damages.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Teaspoon and an Open Mind. This story's quite dark including descriptions of rape, physical violence, branding, repeated character death (Jack), with some H/C and consensual sex.

The Doctor stepped into the Tardis, his face pale and his chest tight. The light in the Tardis was calm again, though dim. The rotor sat motionless. 

Down on Earth the Master's body was still in flames, turning to dust. 

The Year had unraveled, time turning back in on itself, opening all his old wounds. He'd expected to cry, shout, throw stones to the heavens–but he just felt a sort of empty horror. His stomach churned with deja-vu, as if he was watching Gallifrey burn again. 

He heard the small click and clank of wire clippers and soldering, and climbed up the steps. Jack's feet shifted beneath the console, and the Doctor swallowed, hard. 

He should be grateful Jack had taken charge, dismantled the Paradox machine and was fixing the Tardis. But no one knew the ship the way the Doctor himself did. One wrong connection, and they'd find themselves in a temporal phase shift–or worse.

“Jack,” he said. “Get your hands off my machine.”

The motion under the console paused, and Jack's voice echoed up to him. “Doctor, anyone would think you're jealous!” 

Trust Jack to fall back on flirtation, to try to break through the horror of all they'd endured.

“Maybe I am.” The Doctor looked up again at the time rotor, dark and still, like a headstone. 

“Just another connection to fuse.” Jack rustled back into motion.

“Jack.” The Doctor's voice was reedy, barely in check. He looked down at his hands, gripping the rail. The Master had turned him old and wrinkled. Now his hands were young again–firm flesh, dark hair across his knuckles, long and straight fingers. Nothing like the gnarled twigs he'd banged on the side of his cage. 

Jack had rustled out from beneath the console, sat up, and was watching him. The Doctor saw that Jack had showered and changed into clean clothes. He was still muscled, still strong, and still had that unnatural life pumping within him. 

If Jack hadn't died so often this year, hadn't restored his entire body, he would probably look like a scrawny wreck of himself. The Doctor mused on the irony. Everything about the man was wrong–and because of that, everything was all right again.

“Leave the Tardis for later,” the Doctor instructed. 

Jack stood up and stretched. “I made the arrangements,” he said. “Torchwood watched the world leaders get gunned down by Harold Saxon's high-tech toys. We're investigating the case of Martha Jones and her family. They'll be able to go home.” He nodded toward one of the guest corridors of the Tardis. “They’re resting now.”

“Thank you.” The Doctor ran a hand across his neck. 

Jack watched him, like a question. 

“It's done,” the Doctor said. 

“Good.” 

“Now then!” The Doctor pushed himself into motion. He jumped up to the console, checking the Tardis' controls and her status. The Paradox machine had been entirely dismantled, and the Tardis' basic functions restored. 

Jack had done a fine job. He hadn't re-engaged the temporal or spatial controls, just the Tardis' internal environment. The Doctor forced a smile and swung back around. “Next time, ask before you play with my toys.”

Jack returned the smile. “Did a good job then, did I?”

“Good enough.” The Doctor swept past him, tapping his shoulder. “One more thing left. Come on.”

Jack trailed the Doctor down the corridor. The Doctor brushed his hands on each door, till he found an unused convalescing room, a quiet bedroom with enough medical equipment in case something went wrong.

He ushered Jack inside. “Take off your shirt, and sit down.” He nodded toward the bed, then turned to the wall to find the monitor. First, he'd run some scans, and then-- 

“Are you propositioning me?”

The Doctor shook his head. “Hardly seems like the time for that, does it?”

“Doctor, I don't need an examination.” 

“It won't hurt. This is way beyond 21st century medical science.”

“I'm fine, Doctor.”

The Doctor took a breath and abandoned the monitor on the wall. Instead, he walked back to Jack, and sat down on the bed. “Sit.”

Jack shifted on his feet, but finally obeyed. 

“I need to know what he’s done to you.” The Doctor looked him in the eye. “The human mind is a powerful, complicated tool. In the wrong hands, it's a weapon.”

“Are you saying I’m dangerous?” 

“That’s what we’re here to find out,” the Doctor answered. “The brain relies on chemical and electrical signals to create memory and control your body. What's more, it controls the way cells reproduce–and your genes can express themselves differently based on how loosely or tightly wound your DNA is.”

“You're saying he could have changed my memories? Changed my body? But look at me--” Jack lifted his arms. “I’m fine.”

The Doctor nodded. “Just a little psychic nudge, for a time lord. Your genetic makeup can be altered. The way you think. The way your cells function, over time.” 

Jack nodded. “You're saying my cells could be mutating, like a cancer?”

“That's just one example.” The Doctor brought his hands slowly up to Jack's shoulders. “Every hour that goes by, it’s harder to trace any changes.”

Jack let the Doctor start to unbutton his shirt, and then closed his hands over the Time Lord's. Swiftly he finished the job and pulled his shirt off. “So, why have me strip?” he asked.

“Your mind is your control center," said the Doctor, "But your nervous system is your communications network. Everything happening in your brain--” the Doctor tapped his temples with his hands--”gets translated in your body.”

“You're monitoring me?”

The Doctor nodded. “You have goose pimples. Your skin’s pale. You're trembling just barely." The Doctor closed a hand around Jack's wrist. "You're terrified, and you're right to be, but this won't hurt. I promise.” 

Jack took a halting breath and shut his eyes. His limbs were tense. “Do it, then.”


	2. Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack describes his experience.

"Relax, first. Remember when we met? Dancing with Rose?” The Doctor called to mind dancing with Rose, watching Jack dance with her–those moments they'd shared as family. “Trust me.”

He felt Jack’s shoulders collapse under his palms, and his breathing become steadier. The Doctor moved his hands back up to Jack's temples. “Start with what's easiest, and just talk. I'll find the images.”

“To the Master,” Jack swallowed, “I was just target practice. A walking dart board. Or circus pet. He liked to throw knives. He'd try to aim for non-critical organs, see how many blades he could sink before I died.”

“That’s right, keep going.”

“Poison darts, bows and arrows. He kept finding older, more barbaric weapons. I'd die, and heal, and we'd start over.”

Jack's muscles twitched. The Doctor could sense the chemicals being released. The physical pain from the memories, the fear that tensed Jack’s muscles. With a gentle nudge, he reversed the flow of adrenalin and the corticosteroids–stress hormones in Jack's body. 

“He was a student of anatomy, you could say. He'd break bones, or put joints out, to see how many ways he could do it, and how the body reacted.”

“Can’t do anything about the physical torture,” the Doctor said. “Best to move on. What about the mind games?”

“Like you said. Memories. He’d insert artifacts, or things people said. Maybe take things away.”

Jack could feel a pressure in his mind, felt his memory open up, as the Doctor stimulated parts of his brain related to memories and senses–“I still know some of them are false,” Jack continued, “Like a manipulated photo with a visible outline. But I wonder how much of my memory I can trust.” 

“Right.” The Doctor said. “We’ll look for clues–-hints--markers. Start with the obvious falsehoods, and we’ll find the others.”

“All right,” Jack said. 

His thoughts were chaotic and jumbled, but as Jack tried to describe each scene, he felt the Doctor shift his thoughts, and clarify the visions. Every thought more vibrant then usual, with the Doctor’s influence in his mind. 

“I'm looking for gaps,” the Doctor explained after a moment. “Memories are synaptic connections and chemical exchange. The rate of chemical deterioration, and the structure of the synapses–they’re all clues. Like a date stamp. Some connections were broken. Then others added. Date stamps that don’t match–they’re falsehoods.”

“It's tingling.” Jack's eyes snapped open. “What did you do?”

“Making edits.” The Doctor's eyes fluttered beneath his lids, and Jack felt his fingers grow warm. 

“Doctor–don’t–“

“Only where I'm certain,” the Doctor said. “I'm not changing what you know. I'm adding those circles around the false memories. So you know what’s real again.”

Jack's breath caught in his throat, but he felt the Doctor's hands slide down his neck, and down his arms. The Doctor's hands circled his own. His eyes opened, and he looked at Jack.

“There's something I need to unlock. Different places all through your memory in recent years, spread all through your mind, but the content of it’s connected. He's hidden something from you.”

Jack clutched the Doctor’s hands. “Show me, then.” 

The Doctor nodded. “Lean forward.”

He did, and the Doctor's forehead pressed on his own, cool and slightly clammy. Jack felt the tingling more acutely. His left thigh twitched, and he felt a slight stirring in his groin. A rush slid down his spine as the visions washed over him. 

Ianto Jones. The little smile at the corners of his mouth. Heady, hot looks across the Hub. The stopwatch games. 

The Master had taken memories of Jack’s lover. 

Hide and seek. Ianto's hands on Jack's hips. On his ass. His thighs. The low, Welsh voice saying Jack's name, over and over. Delicious friction. 

“Ianto,” Jack breathed. He still felt the Doctor’s hands under his own, their foreheads touching.

The trembling in Ianto's eyes as Jack slid his hands down his pants, searching, testing, feeling him. The little curls around his sex. Fast, guilty hand jobs in the archive room. 

Slower, sensual love-making in Jack's bed. In Ianto's bed. Making tea together. Feeding each other Chinese from one set of chopsticks. Ianto breathing against Jack's chest as he slept. 

Jack found himself sweating, breathing heavily–gasping, really–his knuckles white and his thigh pressed on the Doctor's. His slacks were tight at his crotch, and blood pounded in his ears. 

 

“Shh.” The Doctor's voice calmed him. Wide, wide brown eyes were looking at him. "Come back here now."

“You saw everything?” Jack asked. He forced himself to unclench his fingers around the Doctor’s hands. He wiped his face, and found his cheeks wet.

A short, curt nod answered him. “You want a few minutes alone?” Even the Doctor's cheeks were flushed now.

Jack shook his head. He needed to know. “What else? What else did he take?”

The Doctor leaned forward again. He pried his fingers from Jack's and put them on Jack's temples. 

Instead of feeling the tingling or pressure of the Doctor pacing around his memory, Jack felt his body relax. His arousal dimmed, the sweating stopped, and his breathing calmed. The Doctor lowered his hands again, and lightly wrapped them back around Jack's.

“Talk to me," the Doctor's voice was low, calming, but still urging Jack on. "What else did he do, besides the memories?”

“When he had time, he made it a triathlon torture. First the physical pain, then mind games, then--" his mind was open to the Doctor's and Jack didn't have to finish the sentence. The Doctor did it for him.

"The sex.” The Doctor shifted on the bed. “I'm not surprised,” he finally answered. 

"You too?" Jack asked, peering in the Doctor's eyes. 

The Doctor's face was blank and his voice was low and dangerous. “What'd he do to you?" 

Jack squeezed his eyes shut. How far could he let the Doctor into his mind? It was too much to remember, and too much to share--but what other alternative was there? 

He calmed himself, or was that the Doctor reassuring him? Somewhere in his head, he felt the Doctor waiting–witnessing his own thought process. But he was silent, letting Jack think it through.

If there was one man who could make sense out of the scramble of Jack’s mind and forgive his dark, twisted past, it was this impossible alien. The alien he’d share anything with–everything–if only the Doctor asked. Jack realized that meant more than just love and self-sacrifice--right now it meant digging into his most painful memories.

“He tied me up,” Jack started talking. “Scraped his fingernails over my chest.” Jack put the Doctor's hand on his chest. “He drew symbols, and they glowed. Burned and cut like a brand.”

“Symbols--What did they look like?”

“Circular. Spirals. Gallifreyan, maybe. Most of them disappeared the next day, but there were bruises from this,” Jack pressed his hands against the Doctor's temples. 

“He got in your head.”

“Yes,” Jack was still clutching the Doctor’s hand to his chest. He felt uncomfortably warm, and he knew the Doctor could feel everything. It was too late to hide.

“It was sensual,” Jack said. “He touched me. Knew how to make me crave more."

"He made you want it?" the Doctor's voice was rough now, too.

Jack nodded. "He made me beg for it.”

“No. Jack,” The Doctor’s voice breathed. 

“It was erotic,” Jack confessed. “Even though it was disturbing. He made me hard. He hurt me, but he made me come. Every time.”

“Not your fault,” the Doctor reassured him, squeezing his fingers, and running a thumb over his cheek. The Doctor's touch was in his mind, too, clarifying Jack's memories and calming him. 

The only reason he could talk about any of this, he realized, is he knew the Doctor was keeping his emotions in check, and guiding him. 

“Your mind--Jack, what was he doing there?" 

Jack nodded. “Any time I thought of someone else, he'd change my memories, or replace them with himself, or some hideous creature.”

Jack's throat was too dry and tight to continue. He tried to shut the door in his head and pulled away from the Doctor.

He felt brown eyes boring into him, as he stared at all four of their knees. The Doctor's voice was soft, gentle--“He broke down your defenses. But you’re here now. You’re all right. ”

“Am I?” Jack asked, and the answer in his head was a resounding yes.

Jack leaned forward. “He played other tricks. Some nights, the whole scene repeated over and over–and each time, the pain got worse and the pleasure less. I'd die burning in agony.” 

“Hmm,” the Doctor pondered. “A disintegrating time loop with an explosive fuse.”

“A time lord weapon, isn't it?” 

“They were fond of time loops. Not me,” the Doctor said. 

"Not you." Jack felt relief wash over him. This was all he had to show. All he could say.

But the Doctor wouldn't let it go. “Show me the symbols.” 

"Please--No. No more, Doctor."

"Jack," the Doctor drew out his name, his voice low, entreating. Jack felt as if he was being pulled to the Doctor's mind, and wanted to resist--it was too much pressure, too much like the Master's pull on him. 

The Doctor answered his thoughts: "I'm not him." The Time Lord's fingers brushed his temples like feathers. The Master's touch had been very different. 

Jack's breath was ragged, but he surrendered. “One scar never washed away." 

He opened the memory to the Doctor. One night the Master dipped a razor blade in some fiery fluid, and carved into the front of Jack's hip–just around his pelvis, where his hip met his thigh. All the while, he'd gripped Jack's sex in one firm hand, while ripping into his skin with the other. 

The Doctor pushed away from Jack, his eyes wide and staring. “He didn't.”

Jack's hand moved to the button of his trousers. “You wanted to see it.” 

The Doctor stood up with him, opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing. Jack shoved the trousers down around his ankles, reached for the Doctor’s hand, and guided him to pull down his boxers enough to show the mark. 

The Doctor shuddered as his fingers grazed Jack’s skin and the symbol.


	3. Release

The Doctor rubbed his thumb over the golden scar carved in Jack's hip, feeling the slightly raised skin of concentric circles, spirals, and diacritic lines. 

Jack felt a shiver run through his body. Arousal flooded him, and he shut his eyes, clamping down on the noise that threatened to escape his lips. The Doctor's brow looked afraid, worried, and his eyes flickered up at Jack's face, then back at the symbol. 

Very lightly he brushed his fingertips around the perimeter of the scar, and Jack threw his head back, trying to breathe through the sensation. 

Then the Doctor pulled Jack's boxers back up and let his hand rest against Jack's side. “All right?” 

Jack swallowed. “Can you get rid of it?” 

“Let me look.” The Doctor closed his eyes and brought his hands back up to Jack's temples. Jack felt his body shake, feeling the pressure in his head as the Doctor searched around his mind. 

“It's a bonding mark,” the Doctor finally said, “Linked to him. Now he's gone, it will vanish, the next time you die.” He blinked his eyes open and stepped away again. 

“I have to die?”

“The only thing I could do is over-write it, but--” the Doctor shook his head.

“Then do it.”

“You'd just be bonded to me, instead.” The Doctor looked at the wall, his mouth pressed in a thin line, and ran his fingers through his hair. His frame was skinnier than ever, and he seemed to sway. Jack leaned forward to steady him. 

“Doctor, we’re already--”

“But my mark won’t disappear if you die.” The Doctor's eyes flickered over Jack's face. 

Jack kicked off his trousers and sat down. “I really don't mind, if it's yours.”

“Maybe you don't know your own mind.” 

Jack looked down at his hands, thinking of Ianto's soft, warm fingers around his neck. Ianto's fierce eyes peering out from thick brows. His quick cries as he came. All those sensations the Master had pulled from Jack’s mind. Maybe the Doctor was right.

“There are things I haven't told you,” the Doctor said, more gently now, sitting down next to him again. “Koschei and I were more than friends at the Academy on Gallifrey. We played. Experimented. It was a game at first.”

Jack looked up at him. “You were lovers?”

“It was all forbidden,” the Doctor said. “There were no boundaries–-no guidance for us. At first it was new. Good. Fun. Then it turned dark. Went too far before I realized it. Then I was powerless to stop him.”

“He'd become your master.”

The Doctor nodded, and his face was written with sadness, and something Jack had never seen in him–shame. 

In a swift movement, the Doctor stood up and his hands fumbled with his trousers, pulling them open to show the same mark, in the same place. 

“You too,” Jack said. He reached out, tentatively, brushing the Doctor's hip and the mark. The Doctor swayed again, clearly swallowing the noise that came unbidden to his lips. 

Jack stood up and wrapped his palms around the Doctor's hip bones, holding him steady. “An erogenous zone.”

The Doctor nodded, his eyes wide and one eyebrow raised, “Oh, yes.” 

They held each other's eyes, and leaned into each other, and then they were kissing. The Doctor's hands slipped up Jack's torso, cupping his neck. Jack's hands dropped around the Doctor's back. 

The Doctor was still swaying, then shaking, and pulled away from Jack's lips. Jack opened his eyes, and found tears sliding down the Doctor's face. 

“The worst is over,” Jack said. “The year is over.”

“Yeah.” The Doctor wiped his hands across his face and blinked back the tears coursing through him.

Jack tried to reassure him. He rubbed his palms across the Doctor's shoulders.

The Doctor tried to smile, and he responded to the touch, reaching for Jack's hips. Slowly, he rubbed his thumbs in circles against Jack's hip bones, inward until he found the Master's scar through his boxer shorts. Jack's breath hitched, and he curled his fingernails into the Doctor’s shoulders.

The Doctor leaned in, pulling Jack closer inch by inch, and Jack ran his palms up and down the Doctor's back. 

There was nothing little or tentative in their kissing this time. The Doctor's tongue was a fierce snake slithering around Jack's mouth. His long fingers worked around Jack’s hips and inner thigh, stroking him in slow circles. 

Jack ran his hands down to the Doctor’s bum, to drag him closer. The Doctor's teeth were sharp, nipping against his neck, and his fingers were cool, circling around Jack's hips and sex, stroking his length. 

Jack didn't hold back his moan this time. He bent his head down, licking along the Doctor's ear, then pulling back. “Are you sure?” 

“Absolutely,” the Doctor murmured against him, tugging his shirt. 

The Doctor's lithe fingers pulled off Jack's shirt, then his boxers, and then pulled Jack by the arms into bed. He was not only certain, Jack could see, he was eager.

Once laying there, side by side, the Doctor pulled away and looked at Jack, as if considering him quietly again. He ran one hand up Jack's stomach, over his nipples, up into the hair behind his neck, and the other hand tracing spirals around the Master's mark.

Jack shivered, and held back the urge to move and press himself against the Doctor again. 

“Do you still want me to write over it?” the Doctor asked.

“What does that mean?” Jack asked. “Can I still go back to Torchwood?”

“It's a bond, is all. You could leave anytime.”

Jack pressed against him. “I want it.”

The Doctor's mouth was on him again, his hand still working in circles against Jack's hip, and Jack forgot the conversation completely. The Doctor ran light fingertips across his sex, then gripped harder, pumping until Jack was groaning aloud against the Doctor's shoulder. 

He fumbled to touch the Doctor, to lower himself to lick the Doctor's nipples, suck at the Doctor's stomach, then finally close his mouth around the Doctor's cock--rich and musky and hot in his mouth. 

The Doctor’s fingers ghosted over Jack’s neck, and he thrust his hips, urging Jack to take him deeper. Jack took in his length, tightening his lips around the Doctor’s cock and sucking him in. Then he let go, and started licking up and down much more lightly. 

Jack couldn’t see the Doctor’s face, but his stomach trembled, and he shuddered and sighed at the teasing motions.

The Doctor's fingers threaded through Jack’s hair, then found his temples, and suddenly Jack felt arousal flood through him stronger than before. His own cock pulsed against the Doctor’s thigh. 

Clear as day, Jack could see the Doctor wanted to forget all that had been done, all they had seen together, all the death and loneliness, and just feel this moment–-to be with Jack, now, to feel their bodies twining together. 

Jack sucked at the tip of the Doctor's cock and closed his fist against the length of him, pumping until the Doctor arched up on the bed, calling out and groaning. The Doctor's fingers clutched the sheets. Jack eased up his pace--he didn't want to rush things, didn't want to reach the end so soon. 

Jack pulled away, and slid back up the Doctor's body. Jack found him flushed, with freckles visible, and his hair a beautiful mess. Jack lowered himself on the Doctor's side, straddling his legs, and watched the Doctor's long lashes flutter shut across his dark eyes as they kissed. 

Jack held back, moving his mouth lightly against the Doctor's, licking and nibbling at his lips and flicking lightly against his tongue. The Doctor ran a hand down Jack's stomach and found him, throbbing and waiting. Jack moaned into his mouth as the Doctor started to pump.

The Doctor arched his hips against Jack's as they pumped each other, working in the same rhythm. He wrapped his leg over Jack's knee and started moaning in earnest with every movement. 

The intense ringing in Jack’s head grew as his forehead pressed against the Doctor's, and his stomach tightened. They moaned in each other's mouths, and Jack bucked against the Doctor's hand, and heard the Doctor call his name. 

They came together, warmth coating their hands and stomachs and thighs. The Doctor’s free hand clutched in Jack’s hair and his eyes were wide and shocked. He shut his eyes then, muttering Jack's name as he fell limp. 

Jack let go of the Doctor's empty sex, and pulled his hips closer, grinding against him as the last thrill washed through them. He shut his eyes, catching his breath. 

The Doctor moved from under him and rolled over, wiped his sticky hands on a pillow case, and turned back to Jack. He pressed his fingers against Jack's temples and pressed their foreheads together again, murmuring unintelligibly. Jack breathed deep, now so much more relaxed than before, letting the Doctor in completely to his own thoughts. 

The Doctor trailed his hand down Jack’s torso, and the long fingers settled around Jack’s hips, against the mark. Jack clutched his arms around the Doctor's thin body. He was amazed they had found themselves here, now, after all the years of waiting, after the betrayals at Torchwood, after the Master's torture–here, together. He could feel the Doctor echoing his relief, and his pleasure.

The Doctor fell silent, his hands still cupping Jack's head, his breath coming in more and more slowly until Jack was certain he must be asleep. Jack smiled inwardly and shifted, wrapping an arm around the Doctor, and then the Doctor's eyes were open again. His face spread to a slow, wide smile. 

A cool tingling began in the scar at Jack's hip, wholly unexpected, and ran up Jack’s spine. As the Doctor traced the lines with his thumb, Jack could feel the symbol had changed. 

Jack tried to reach out to the Doctor in his mind, show him all the years he'd waited, all the longing he'd known. He sunk his head against the Doctor’s and felt their heartbeats mingle, their breathing steady–-as if they were breathing in synch with the same pair of lungs. 

Then he felt the Doctor shift, looking at him, and moving their hands to the Doctor’s brand mark. The Time Lord was murmuring in wonder. “You’ve changed it-–How did you?–-You’re impossible.”

Jack laughed. “Time agency psychic training. Wasn’t sure it was strong enough, but with all this–-oh yes, Doctor.”

The Doctor grinned. “Oh, brilliant.”

“You’re mine,” Jack whispered. “Are you?”

“As much as you’re mine,” the Doctor answered. His words were a warning of sorts, and they shared the images of Ianto and Martha. There were others who needed them. They would part ways, they knew it. But still, no matter the distance, they would still be linked in some sense, forever.

The spell broke as quickly as it had started. The Doctor hopped up. “Shower?” Without waiting for Jack, he prodded open a door to a nearby room. “Come join if you want,” he said over his shoulder. And he disappeared inside.

Sprawled on the bed, Jack listened to the sound of the water running. The Doctor was even humming to himself. Everything was going to be all right with the world again–and even the Doctor, for all he’d been through, might be all right.

Jack breathed deep, then forced himself to stand up. “I’m coming in!” he called.


End file.
